GM Vice-chair touts "Volt" but still denies climate science

Click on this hilarious video and you will hear comedian Stephen Colbert asking if global warming is being caused by “sunspots” and GM vice-chair Bob Lutz answering:

“… in the opinion of about 32,000 of the world's leading scientists, yes.”

The reference in what is otherwise a lighthearted comedy segment demonstrates the toxicity of the climate change denial movement.

The 32,000 deniers in question are not the “world's leading scientists.” They are a self-selected group of people whose science credentials are modest or non-existent and who are led by the man who was big tobacco's leading apologist.

On the whole, the Colbert video is wonderfully funny , and Lutz deserves some credit for having the nerve to go on air and make fun of his own electric (concept) car, the Chevy Volt. But it's chilling to hear him toss in this big lie (the Oregon petition to which he refers doesn't even mention sunspots). It's this kind of casual dishonesty that keeps the public confused about this issue.

Lutz says at the beginning of the segment that he wishes he were controlling the world economy - that he thinks he could be doing a better job. Right. I mean look at what a wonderful job he and his buddies are doing with the GM economy.

It’s all about worldwide coal and the developing world. Sorry, but your hybrid can’t cast the tiniest shadow on world coal. No way - no how, Not even if you converted the entire world to Chevy Volts - like that would ever happen.

of The Air Car. Invented by a Formula One racing car designer over the last 18 years. Licensed by Tata, which invested $30 million in he company to bring the technology to India next year.

It runs on compressed air — I shit you not — and can travel more than a hundred miles on a single tank, and refilled for pennies. It’s a safe technology, and will provide quick, efficient, (almost) zero emission transportation for the developing world.

air cars and electric cars make me realize how good ice cars are. You can go 600 km fill up in 5 minutes and go another 600. If you’re dumb enough to run out of gas, you grab a 2 gallon gas can and you’re done.

Air and electric cars will spend too much time at the side of the road and drivers will spend too much time worrying about it. The volt is a better idea.

“Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles could reduce CO2 emissions from 37% to 67% compared to ICE vehicles and 7% to 54% over hybrid-electric vehicles.”

And where is the power going to come from to charge all these vehicles? The grid of course, and what powers the grid? Coal fired generating plants! Yep, that’s it! We reduce the CO2 from cars, and up the CO2 emissions from mining equipment, transporting the coal by truck and rail, and buring the coal, and disposing of the ashes by truck and rail. Yep, sounds like a great trade off to me!

Wakefield, an electric engine is much more efficient than existing ICEs. That efficiency – or, if you prefer, conservation, which the conservatives seem to be opposed to – is what makes all the difference.

On the greenhouse gas front, the EPRI, the California Air Resources Board, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and others found that using plug-in hybrids results in LOWERGHG emissions to travel a given distance. The exact proportion depends on the electric range of the vehicle as well as the vehicle’s class; a ballpark figure for the Chevy Volt* is roughly 50% less than a standard compact sedan – and roughly 35% less than standard hybrids like the Prius. This number will improve as non-GHG power plants are built.

www.epriweb.com/public/000000000001000349.pdf
(*It has to be ballpark since this scenario considers electric ranges of 20 and 60 miles, while the Volt has a 40-mile range. Take with a grain of salt.)

However, there’s still power load to consider – in other words, how many consumer vehicles can we replace before having to build more GHG-producing power plants. Let’s take a look at what Pacific Northwest National Laboratories has to say about this:

According to the link below, 73% of cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, and vans in the United States could be supported by their existing infrastructure (without building new power plants), simply by charging during off-peak hours. For longer journeys (i.e. truckers), no one’s considering switching to plug-in hybrids, but the reduced demand for fossil fuels will make transport much cheaper on the truckers as well.

“For longer journeys (i.e. truckers), no one’s considering switching to plug-in hybrids, but the reduced demand for fossil fuels will make transport much cheaper on the truckers as well.”

Interesting, as your buddy Richard Littlemore claimed a couple threads back that trucks were going to be converted to hybrids on mass. So which is it. Also, it maybe be cheaper for the fuel, (not likley with added carbon taxes) but it does not reduce your CO2 emissions does it.

“73% of cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, and vans in the United States could be supported by their existing infrastructure (without building new power plants), simply by charging during off-peak hours.”

That’s a prediction, and I would say a hopefull one at that. Imagine a hot summer day, and night, when everyone has their AC untis on and the demand is near peak, people get home to plug in their cars over night, and the system goes down. The problems will be when we hit times like that. Most of the time the grid could supply most of the plugins (but since many untilities drop their output during non-peak, they will still have to increase supply to cover the plug-ins), but it is when the system is at capacity that is the problem. Hence untilities will build more capacity in response to that threat.

Submitted by Richard Levangie on Sat, 2008-09-13 13:55.
“Truckers travel thousands upon thousands of miles in the course of a year, and if they employ hybrid technology for trucks, they can realize a 20 to 40 percent improvement in fuel economy, depending upon whether they retrofit an existing truck (good), or buy a new one (better). With diesel currently at around $1.50 a liter, they can actually fully recoup their investment in 18 months to three years. “

There is a difference between “hybrid” (what Levangie said) and “plug-in hybrid” (which I said). The latter’s an electric vehicle, the former isn’t. No one is suggesting plug-in hybrid trucks, but folks *are* suggesting hybrid ones. Makes sense you latch on to a percieved error and exaggerate while dodging the main thrust of my argument.

The reason being electric cars lack RANGE, which is one of the two biggest things a trucker needs (the other being power). Gasoline has very high energy density, and is ideal for carrying large loads long distances (assuming rail isn’t an option).

My point regarding truckers was this: If consumers switch to gas-light plug-in hybrids, the lack of demand makes trucking cheaper even on ICEs.

“Most heavy- and medium-duty vehicles use diesel engines because of their power, durability and efficiency. Now with the commercial availability of hybrid technologies, these two power sources are being married to further improve efficiency and reduce emissions in school and transit buses, delivery vehicles and other trucks. During this webinar speakers will discuss the combined technology, its performance and the cost-benefit analysis that should be undertaken as fleet managers buy new vehicles and policymakers look for ways to encourage adoption of cleaner technologies. ”

“SEATTLE, Wash., August 1, 2007 - Kenworth Truck Company and Dunn Lumber, two long-time Seattle-area companies, have teamed up to bring Kenworth’s first medium duty hybrid-electric truck into the U.S. market.”

Can’t find the other, but it was tractor units with electric motors on the drive axles. It was a plug in too. So such vehicles are being planned. But seems none or very few have been implemented yet.

BTW, and just because there is less gasoline being used does not mean the price of diesel will go down. Two completely different fuels made from different parts of the distilation process.

You also have to allow for CNG and LNG engines, Flex-Fuel Engines, and Hybrid Diesels.

I’ve told you that I cover this industry, and yet you argue every point. So, I’ll offer a few headlines from our publication in the last couple of months… These are just a dozen deals; we report on about 36 deals every week.

1) Wal-Mart to take delivery of 300 Freightliner trucks from Daimler (BTW… Wal-Mart US is cutting fleet emissions by 25 percent this year)

2) Peterbilt Diesel Hybrid trucks to go into full production this summer

3) Long Beach Port to reduce Truck Pollution by 80 percent in four years with $2 Billion in subsidies for alternative fueled trucks

I did ask, and did not get a reply, how long will it take to convert 8.5 million trucks in the US and 850,000 in Canada? Again, I’m not saying the technology does not work. I’m saying either it cannot be scaled up or cannot be scaled up in time. Can hybrid plug-in trucks be scaled up in time? If you want to target 10 years, we would have to convert 2328 trucks PERDAY starting right now. If we can manage 1000 per year converted it would take 230 years. That’s what I mean by scale.

So, add all this up. Millions of cars to be converted to plug in. Millions of trucks to be converted to plug in. Railways to be converted to all electric. And get all homes off FF heating to some form of electric powered heat system.

How much demand is that going to put on the system and how many new power plants will be needed to be built. Europe and the UK is already eyeing building more coal fired plants just to keep up with current demand, let alone all new demand by this new technology.

This is not going to be the smooth transition to keep this civilization going you think it will be. It all has to do with energy invested vs energy returned. You really need to see these videos 17a-c http://www.chrismartenson.com/peak_oil.

How so when the tar sands produces more CO2 that all the cars in canada? That does not even include the number 2 CO2 emitter, cement manufacturing. And you are claiming that to heat all our homes/buildings/factories in Canada is only 10% of CO2 emissions? Doubt it.

Besides, you will never convert all the trucks in 20 years, you would have to convert some 1500 EVERYDAY in the US to meet that goal (150 in Canada). That’s a massive undertaking.

Besides, we don’t have 20 years. We will be lucky to have 10 or even 5 left before oil goes into terminal decline. In 4 years the third largest source of oil to the US, the Canterell field, won’t produce enought to meet mexico’s domestic demand let alone export to the US. That field is dropping by 15% a year and accelerating.

BTW, keep up the great work on Project ABC, that will split the vote so much that it will guarrentee a Harper majority!

In launching ABC, I am hoping to do three things, and thereby do my small bit in denying a Conservative majority.

1) To shine a light on climate change and Harper’s sorry environmental record. People speak of Harper’s international leadership, but Canada and the US were booed and hissed at the Bali climate summit by delegates from 190 other countries. Canada stood alone among 51 nations at the Commonwealth Summit last November. We’re isolated and alone. And fall behind economically by not embracing clean tech (which is a major focus of ABC).

2) To shine a light on how bad Harper’s administration has been – it has dozens of scandals and misdeeds in just three years, and put us back into a deficit. (Which is why I think they’ve called the election, so that Canadians won’t realize that we’re in the red). I have three pages of scandals already loaded, and many more to add (and I welcome input from readers… it’s hard to track them all!)

http://www.anythingbutconservative.com/conservative-scandals.html

3) And finally, to convince Canadians to vote strategically in 30 key ridings, so the Liberals, NDP, and Greens win enough seats to form a coalition government (as they often do in Europe).

http://www.anythingbutconservative.com/vote-for-climate.html

Many other groups are doing the same thing, particularly:

http://www.voteforclimate.ca/en/index.php

I’m a writer who does web sites, and with 26 pages, there is a lot to read at ABC. One thing that I’m good at is search engine optimization, so if you type in key words like Canadian Conservative Scandals or Harper’s Leadership, you’ll find ABC on the first or second page of results. So I’m getting a fair number of hits, and a fair number of kind letters (not to mention vitriol and questions about my parentage).

Maybe it won’t work, but I’m certain that I’m convincing more people than you are.

Wakefield, please read the study. You evidently dismissed its claims out of hand without reading it because of your preconceptions about how these perform, which is exactly what you did above when you mocked them for transferring GHG emissions to the power plant.

Unless you think your ‘commonsense’ outdoes hard research, I don’t see how you can make this claim.

I’m not sure why I bother… I know you don’t understand how this is all supposed to work, but the simple fact is that it will work, and far better than you can imagine. Smarter people than you and I are building a brilliant system to usher in a new low-carbon society, and spending billions on R&D. (Just not in Canada with the current administration).

Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and EVs, as described by Brian D, will have large li-ion (or other format) batteries that will be able to hold enough electricity to move a car anywhere from 40 miles (Chevy Volt) to 240 miles (Tesla Roadster). And no, they won’t necessarily add to the need for more dirty coal.

In fact, if we can bring large numbers of EVs and PHEVs to the market (and several countries, including Japan, the US, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Israel, to mention just a few, are promising to do just that… Spain is promising 1 million by 2015; China by 2012), than these cars will actually balance the load.

The technology under development is called V2G — Vehicle to Grid — and it will work like this. You come home in plug-in your car from your 15 mile commute, and it still has a fair bit of juice. So rather than drain the electrical grid at the busiest time of day, these cars will add their energy to the mix, and ensure that utilities don’t have to fire up all their spare generators to meet demand.

And then, later that night, when everyone is asleep and power use is very, very low, your V2G software comes on and your car recharges when electricity is at its cheapest. In fact, in most instances, it will be wind power, or standby power. So rather than using more energy, PHEVs and EVs will help utilities use LESS energy by balancing the load. (A sizable chunk of electric energy goes to keep equipment cool during peak periods; by having a million PHEV batteries attached to the grid, peak periods become much smoother, so there is less demand, less cooling needed, and greater use of resources, and less waste).

In fact, one reason why electrical utilities are so jazzed by PHEVs and EVs is that they will actually have to build fewer power plants to meet demand!!!

So it’s all designed to work together, and it lowers emissions dramatically, and it would be nice if you actually read something besides junk science once in awhile.

The average capacity value of the wind resource in Ontario during the summer (peak load) months is approximately 17%. The capacity value ranges from 38% to 42% during the winter months (November to February) and from 16% to 19% during the summer months (June to August). Since 87% of the hits (periods within 10% of the load peak) occur during the summer months, the overall yearly capacity value is expected to be heavily weighted toward the summer. The overall yearly capacity value is approximately 20% for all wind penetration scenarios. In other words, 10,000 MW of installed nameplate wind capacity is equivalent to approximately 2,000 MW of firm generation capacity. The capacity value is generally insensitive to the wind penetration level, mainly due to good wind geographic diversity and the fact that the various wind output levels are derived by scaling the same wind groups.

50% of the time wind turbines in Ontario over a 2 year period, 2004-2006, produced 50% of the time only 13% of name plate. 85% of the time was under 50% name plate. Never did they produce name plate during that time and 5% of the time they produced nothing.

If Ontario were to build the capacity that the government is claiming will come from wind, 15% of our generation, would require the construction of 77,000 wind turbines and take more than 100 years to build.

Also, these turbines are made in Denmark, shipped by boat to Halifax and TRUCKED all the way from Halifax to Ontario.

Wind is unreliable, intermittent, and right when you need it the most on hot days there is very little wind.

Wakefield, when you charge a battery, you don’t need constant current. Thus, in the context of plug-in hybrids, wind isn’t as much of a detriment as it would be for providing baseload. I believe Joe Romm put it best:

“Cars are typically in use 5% of the day, and parked 95% of the time. Charging from a normal wall outlet might take 30% of the day. That difference represents flexibility to charge when wind or solar power are available. It is also not necessary to get a full charge, there is always gasoline as a backup.”

(No, that isn’t a flip-flop on my earlier position on reduction of GHGs. Due to the increased efficiency and use of electricity, even when you factor in trips beyond electric range, you end up with decreased gasoline usage. Which, incidentally, also reduces US trade deficits (they import much of their oil) and dependence on volatile foreign producers.)

This also sets aside other methods of renewable energy production that do not have this intermittence problem – concentrated solar thermal, for instance.

I’m not saying the technology does not work. What I’m saying is this technology will not scale up to the millions of cars you imagine will work and keep this era of prosperity going.

Plus, utilities will have to boost their output. What will happen with most people is that they will come home from work, plug in their vehicle with the timers set between 11-12 at night to charge up. Now you have millions of vehicles in a time zone all charging at the same time. Since there is 7-15% transmission loss, and 20-30% conversion loss, plus the charging, utilities will have to power up more production that now sits idle at night due to lower demand.

As for concentrated solar thermal, another technology that has not proven to be scalable.

There will be plugin cars, but I suspect you will see very few cars on the road in the next 20 years, or less. Hybrids are just a short term bandaid solution.

Yes. It is. It’s a “I’ll believe it when I see it, IBIWISI” position. The issue is energy invested on energy returned. Watch http://www.chrismartenson.com/peak_oil 17a, b, & c he explains it very well.

“As for paragraph 2, about load times, READTHEFRACKINGREPORT. That was considered and included in the 73% number I used earlier!” Ever heard of The Law of Unintentional Consequences? IBIWISI.

Re concentrated solar thermal. I know what it is and where it is used. Again, IBIWISI approach. It isn’t for everwhere. Two winters in a row in Ontario we had no sun for 6 weeks in a row (Nov-Dec). Total sun for both winters was 17% of the time. (i’ve been tracking it since I have a solar greenhouse, which I have to heat when the sun is not out.)

“but we may already have silver buckshot.” Or lead. Look, again, I understand this stuff works. No question. It’s nice that it will be out there for the benifit of those in the future who happen to live in those areas. But none of this will save this civilization once oil goes into terminal decline.

“As for your final point about plug-in hybrids, want to make a bet? Name a threshold number (or proportion) of electric cars on the road in a given timeframe and I’ll give you odds.”

I don’t make predictions on the future. It has a nasty habit of going in directions not expected.

Spain is promising 1 million EVs by 2015. China is promising 1 million EVs and PHEVs by 2012. Obama is promising 1 million EVs by 2015. Portugal, Denmark, Israel, California, Hawaii are all joining Project Better Place; Israel alone will have 500,000 recharging stations by 2011.

That’s hardly a band-aid solution. Your problem is that you live in North America, and you don’t know how much is happening, so you think nothing is happening.

The point is that we can use a range of power sources, depending on the application. Wind power may not be appropriate in all cases, but it takes the pressure off of other sources by filling in where its drawbacks are not an issue. Anything that feeds into the system and lessens the need to burn fossil fuels is a step forward.

Oh, and on a related note, I notice you point out that these turbines are likely made in Denmark. Historically, why is that the case?

Turns out that the United States was poised to be a world leader in wind energy in the 80s… and then the Republicans killed renewables funding, meaning that we have to go overseas to supply our renewable infrastructure rather than make it on this continent. The US is now “a bit player in an industry [they] launched…thanks to conservatives.”

In short, jobs that would have been in North America are now outsourced overseas, and the costs of obtaining this technology is higher than it would be, due to the ‘fiscally responsible’ actions of the conservatives. tinyurl.com/45t8kf

In the 80’s oil was $10-20 a barrel and few saw peak oil as a reality. Would not have mattered who was in the White House. Clinton didn’t reserect it did he? But always with the political jab, eh? Shows your true colours and real motives.

Who says I do? I support the lesser of evils based on all qualities of parties. I will never vote NDP again after Rea. The Liberals campaign on the left, but govern on the right (most of the time), and consider themselves the natural governing party of the country, reason not to vote for them right there. That leaves the conservatives. Yet I did dump them after Mulroney (too far left), took a while to get back to them.

Practically I’m more Libertarian according to www.politicalcompass.org. Took the test 3 times over 5 years, ended pretty well near the middle, slightly lower right.

Now due to peak oil my political views have changed. None of the parties have yet put any kind of proposals to deal with it. Though Harper does know about it, he said so in different words at a XMas interview. So he knows about peak oil. Dion knows it too, he has read The Long Emergency. Why they are keeping is quite is a tactical move on their part. And a big gamble. Though as long as few understand peak oil the more time I have to prepare.

Oh, and I reject leftist positions because they want to have too much influence and control on the lives of people. Those in control are corrupted by that control. Thus the fewer people with power the better. Power needs to be in the hands of the public. Except the public is too much sheeple. That comes from too much leftist influence. Leftists want – need – sheeple to work. Independance, the position I hold, means you need to take control of your own life.

There is enough wind and wave power in Nova Scotia to power eastern Canada and New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. (It isn’t published; just a comment made to me by a local scientist who works in the industry).

I can tell you from personal experience that the wind almost always blows in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. And no one lives here, so you don’t have to worry about the NIMBY complex. And the waves never, ever stop, not even for a second.

We can get to the promised land if we invest more money into the low-carbon economy. No one solution fits all. We use wind, wave, solar, and we build massive storage centers for energy to have a steady supply. PHEVs help, and so do depleted oil fields… we pump steam below ground on high wind days, and release it back to the power plants when demand rises, and the wind turbines are barely moving.

Smarter people than you and I are working on dozens of brilliant solutions.

So JR, Gary, Rick… if you don’t want join us, then get out of the frakking way.

The potential is incredible. There is a plan now that is seeking funding to use less than one percent of the Sahara Desert as a solar farm. It’s expensive, about $450 billion, but using current technology, there would be enough energy produced to power all of Europe, the Middle East, and a sizable chunk of Africa.

And while that might seem expensive, the solar panels will produce as much energy as about 50 nuclear plants, but without all that messy waste and security issues.

“There is a plan now that is seeking funding to use less than one percent of the Sahara Desert as a solar farm. It’s expensive, about $450 billion, but using current technology, there would be enough energy produced to power all of Europe, the Middle East, and a sizable chunk of Africa.”

Perfect, put all the electrical power of Europe in the hands of unstable Muslem countries. I can see it now, they demand more money or they will turn off the power.

The world is not a utopia and we will never get one. You are dreaming if you think this version of civilization can keep going with this change in technology. It won’t. The current peace and properity we have experience the last 60 years is because of one thing. Economic growth built using oil. Once that oil goes into terminal decline, there will be jockeying (aka wars) for the remainder. Think musical chairs where not only does a chair get removed (oil depletion) but also more dancers are added to the floor (increased demand).

Richard, you might be interested in this examination of the petition, which compares the list of signatories to the authors of the IPCC report in terms of their expertise. The comments contain links to other examinations.

Note that some of the ‘signatories’ had died before the first version of the petition was circulated in 1998. At least one (Vincent O. Altemose) died four years before the founding of the OISM. Evidently, the OISM has a medium or two on their payroll.

The OISM themselves admit they have a whole 40 climatologists on their list (out of 32,000). Most of the signatories I’ve seen that have academic qualifications have them in architecture and engineering rather than a more relevant field. How, exactly, is this a team of the world’s leading climatologists?

So you are saying that these smart people from other areas of science cannot evaluate the evidence themselves? Only climatologists can? The new Priests of this new religion! Recall in the Dark Ages only priests were considered worthy of understanding the faith. Same with AGW, climatologists only ones who can understand it. What an insult to the human intellect

First, that Michael J. Fox is a real scientist, that’s his name. Second, I find it very contradictory that the AGW dogmatists claim “the world’s scientists” accept AGW, and then when non-climatologists who do not accept AGW, such as the 2/3s of geologists at the Norway conference, is shown the “oh they are not qualified to judge it” card is played. So which is it?

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE